Witness: Ganim Got Free Services

Company Didn't Bill Mayor For Three Jobs

February 06, 2003|By EDMUND H. MAHONY; Courant Staff Writer

NEW HAVEN — Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim took more than $50,000 in free professional services from an architectural and engineering company to which he had awarded millions of dollars of city contracts, according to billing records and other evidence presented Wednesday at his racketeering trial.

An accountant who worked at the Kasper Group testified that the company kept detailed records of the hours it billed to three properties Ganim owned in Bridgeport, Fairfield and Monroe. But, she said, senior company officials never had any intention of collecting the money from Ganim.

Files on two of the properties were marked ``pro bono,'' meaning the work was being done for free. The billing file for the third property -- $23,079.25 of work at a new home Ganim built on Sailor's Lane in Bridgeport -- carried the note ``Discuss with JTK,'' a reference to company owner Joseph T. Kasper.

The accountant, Theresa Hess, said she never discussed the mayor's bill with Kasper. She said she had a conversation with Paul Pinto, the Kasper Group vice president and marketing director whose responsibilities were directed almost exclusively toward winning city contracts.

Hess said Pinto, known around the Kasper offices as a close friend of the mayor, told her to ``write off'' the work at the Sailor's Lane home. At about the time of the conversation with Pinto, Hess said, the Kasper Group received a personal check from Ganim for $2,900. She said Pinto ordered her to create an invoice to account for the check. She said that it was the first and last check she received from Ganim, and that no one ever told her what it was for.

In addition to its work at Sailor's Lane, Hess said, the Kasper Group did $9,312.30 worth of work on a commercial real estate deal Ganim was planning in Monroe and $21,802.59 worth of work on two homes Ganim hoped to convert to rental property at Fairfield Beach in Fairfield.

At about the same time Kasper was providing the mayor free services, Hess said, the company was billing Bridgeport more than $13 million for work it was doing on city contracts. From 1995 to 2000, the period covered in the racketeering indictment against Ganim, the mayor hired the Kasper Group to design a $71 million city sports complex, to work on the city sewage system and to participate in a massive waterfront redevelopment project at Steel Point on the city's south side.

Federal prosecutors spent a substantial portion of two days presenting jurors with evidence of the Kasper Group's work for the city and on the mayor's personal real estate. They want to show that Ganim steered city contracts to the Kasper Group in exchange for kickbacks in the form of engineering and architectural services.

The value of the Kasper work pushes the total of bribes and kickbacks linked to Ganim at the trial into the $200,000 range. The figure will likely increase today when Pinto begins what could be a week of questioning as a witness against the five-term mayor and former Democratic hopeful for governor.

Leonard J. Grimaldi, another Ganim friend and ally, testified in January that he, Pinto and Ganim agreed to share kickbacks they planned to extort from companies the mayor would select to work for the city. Grimaldi said that, under the agreement, Pinto was responsible for holding Ganim's share until an as-yet unspecified future date.

Pinto and Grimaldi have pleaded guilty to racketeering and have agreed to testify against Ganim in the hope of receiving lenient sentences. Ganim, in his defense, says his two former friends are liars trying to shift blame for their own crimes to him.